


Found My Heart

by xianvar



Series: June Special: Bingo [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, HP: EWE, Hobbies, sand castles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xianvar/pseuds/xianvar
Summary: “Oooh,” Hermione exclaimed, stopping short and reaching out to keep Susan close to her. Hermione’s hand was slightly warm and dry on her arm, but she was sweaty, could feel the sand rubbing against her skin under Hermione’s touch. She fought the urge to draw her arm back, to apologize for being gross.Hermione noticed none of those things; or if she did, she didn't mention it.





	Found My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ed Sheeran's _Castle on the Hill_.
> 
> Written for the FFFC June Mini Bingo--if you're so inclined, you can find my card [here](http://kephiso.dreamwidth.org/9360.html).

Susan shoved the wand behind her ear, eyeing her creation critically. Something was still missing, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was…

She dared dart a glance around at her competitors, something she’d tried to avoid while still working on her own building. Not that it would have done her much good during the first stages as they’d all been separated by shrouds then, but those had been lifted almost an hour ago already. Still. She wanted to make something that was _hers_ , and she knew how quickly her mind incorporated details she’d seen somewhere, molding and changing them and making them work.

But she’d had an idea for this, and she did not want any influences, unconscious as they might be.

Now though—now the main bulk was finished and only some minor touch-ups remained, and she wasn’t entirely sure what those touch-ups were.

When she got the idea, it didn’t strike her like lightning, or smashed into her like a mispowered accio. It filtered in gently, a dawning discovery, a possibility waiting to be explored.

She sighed, rolled her shoulders, and got to work.

There were some changes she had to make, some additions—but she still had time. She could still do this.

~*~

“I didn’t know you did sculpting,” Hermione said as they walked the line of castles, one more intricate than the other.

Susan shrugged and smiled and kept looking at the buildings. There were quite a few that she didn’t recognize but Hermione did—mostly from Muggle fairytales and those extended moving pictures she was slowly discovering—

( _“Why are they ignoring me?” Susan asks, about to stand up and walk over to the muggle contraption. Maybe a look inside will reveal the ordinary magic behind it, as alien to her as her gift would be to Muggles. Hermione pulls her back down, closer than she has been before, their shoulders brushing with the tiniest of movements._  

 _“They’re—” Hermione hesitates, and Susan can see her think fiercely about how to best explain this. The thing about Hermione, about this older version of Hermione, is that she never makes her feel_ less _for not knowing something, that she goes radiant and beautiful and extraordinary at the chance to impart her wisdom. “They aren’t alive. Of course, our pictures aren’t alive, either, but these—everything you see, actual Muggles have acted out. They don’t—movies don’t react to their surroundings. They’re basically a lot of unmoving Muggle pictures in quick succession.”_

 _And maybe that explanation should have taken the wonder out of the concept, but somehow it didn’t, somehow it_ amplified _the incredulity, because Muggles—for all their lack of magic, they were magical in their own right_.)

—spiraling towers and no free-floating parts, carefully modeled draw-bridges and moats and crenets.

“Oooh,” Hermione exclaimed, stopping short and reaching out to keep Susan close to her. Hermione’s hand was slightly warm and dry on her arm, but she was sweaty, could feel the sand rubbing against her skin under Hermione’s touch. She fought the urge to draw her arm back, to apologize for being gross.

Hermione noticed none of those things—or if she did, she obviously didn’t care—because she was entranced by one of the sculptures. It looked—well, it looked like a castle, with its rounded towers and crenelets like prongs on a crown, a courtyard lovingly fleshed-out with miniature trees and shrubbery, pathways leading from the gate to the main bulk. It was not a castle Susan knew.

“This is amazing!”

It was not a castle Susan knew, but she found herself swept up in Hermione’s enthusiasm regardless.

“Look at this—I’ve been here, I’ve stood on these steps—if I didn’t know better, I would think the artist had simply shrunk it down, because it looks so much like the real thing—and oh my god, look here, they even have a catapult!”

She pointed towards one of the towers, where there was indeed a catapult, set-up and manned by tiny figures made of rippling sand, incessantly shooting pebbles that disintegrated just inches past the walls.

Hermione was positively gushing, hands aflutter in front of her body, and Susan was content to simply listen, let Hermione’s words wash over her.

When they moved on, Hermione still full of cheer and excitement, it felt natural to take her hand in an attempt to slow her down, and if neither of them let go—well, it was only to avoid losing track of each other in the crowd, right?

~*~

At some point, Hermione let go of her hand again, though she still stayed close enough to Susan that their arms brushed, shoulders sometimes bumping into each other. There were goosebumps on Susan’s skin each time, and she wanted this evening to never be over.

Hermione was looking around with the wide-eyed wonder she usually reserved only for books, and Susan cursed herself for failing to ask if this was just an evening out as friends or an actual date. The not-knowing was terrible—and she wasn’t quite brave enough to simply assume.

Recklessly charging into a situation was the Gryffindor way; if Hufflepuff had taught her one thing, it was that quiet, honest work usually yielded better results in the long-term. Though was this one such situation where these tenets applied? Susan didn’t know, and the data she had was insufficient at best.

Hermione gasping audibly pulled her from her thoughts quite effectively. What—

 _Oh,_ Susan thought as her eyes followed Hermione’s gaze. Her heart started beating faster, apprehension seeping into her limbs. It was ridiculous, she wasn’t supposed to be this nervous, there _was no reason_ to be this nervous except that Susan had not been raised to lie to herself, and whether she liked it or not, she cared about what Hermione thought.

“This is yours,” said Hermione, more statement than question, eyes fixed on the sculpture like it had worked a thrall on her. “It’s—” she didn’t finish that sentence, and for a long horrible moment Susan was sure she hated it, that she had messed something important up, except that Hermione turned to look at her, eyes still so impossibly bright, cheeks flushed from more than just the lingering warmth of a summer day.

“Wow.” Hermione’s voice was breathless, and Susan could feel warmth flood through her and sweep away her worries about the sculpture. Hermione still had her eyes on her, lips slightly parted, and Susan’s gaze was drawn to those beautiful, slightly bitten lips almost of their own volition. A different kind of nervousness settled deep in her gut, a lot like butterflies.

“This is amazing,” Hermione said, “just—” There was an intensity in Hermione’s eyes that Susan didn’t quite know what to do with, didn’t quite know how to place, except that she _wanted_ , and maybe Hufflepuffs weren’t brave, but every kid was more than just a house they got sorted into at eleven—they had to be. She had fought in a war, she had _survived_ said war—so why was she hesitating?

“Thank you,” she said, after too much time had passed already. Her heart was thundering along in her chest. “I—I built it for you.” The words left her in a rush, and she wanted to look away but couldn’t, because the wonder and joy on Hermione’s face were something else altogether.

And when Hermione stepped in and leaned just slightly up, bridging the distance between them, it felt both surprising and like the next logical step, a dichotomy that distracted Susan for a second until she pushed the thoughts aside and let herself fall into the kiss.

Hermione’s lips were softer than they looked, Susan would think later, when she was able to think a coherent thought again, and she would remember that it was pretty non-awkward for a first kiss.

But right then, she didn’t think either of those things, because Hermione’s lips were on hers, Hermione’s hands on her shoulders and hips and nape and everywhere in between, running over her skin in an almost greedy fashion, and her own hands found their way into Hermione’s hair, keeping her close, steadying Susan herself, an anchor in this whirlwind of sensation.

They pulled apart far too soon, Hermione looking at her with a smile on her lips and hunger in her eyes. She stole another, shorter kiss, before drawing back, taking a step back. She did not have to see a mirror to know there was an apology in her eyes.

“There are too many people watching,” she said, and her own voice was just as breathless as Hermione’s had been before, “and if we don’t stop now, I doubt I will be able to stay until the judging.”

Hermione pulled a grimace and then laughed, kissing Susan again—a short, chaste meeting of lips. She took Susan’s hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it was. Susan’s heart was still racing, but she turned back to her sculpture, tried to see it through Hermione’s eyes.

She had modelled Hogwarts, with all its towers and bridges and halls, and, on a whim, had added not only the quidditch pitch but also sculpted tiny hedges into a maze on it. The fanciest bit had been a spell her aunt had taught her: the memo spell used in the ministry, modified to make it both stationary and work on something that wasn’t paper, and so there was a dragon circling the grounds, spewing fine fountains of sand every once in a while that disappeared before they hit the castle below, much like the pebbles. The dragon was joined by a much smaller owl and a hypogriff that made Hermione inhale when she spotted it.

There were no death eaters or crumbling walls, no Dumbledore’s Army. But there was a herd of centaurs, and, if one looked close enough, there were the crumbling remains of a car and some spiders near the three lines of trees that were supposed to sketch the beginning of the forest.

There was no grave stone for a headmaster who had sacrificed himself in a war, no memorials near the Great Lake, but there was the Lake itself, its surface rippling gently.

“There’s even the squid!”

Susan grinned at Hermione’s awed tone, shrugging (the gesture only the tiniest bit bashful, because it was indeed impressive, and Susan had the taste of Hermione’s lips on hers and Hermione’s hand in hers and the implied praise made her feel like she could fly).

“Once you get the hang of that spell, it’s not so hard to replicate,” she said, not mentioning the hours spent practicing beforehand, the lengths she had gone to to get the shapes just right. Hufflepuffs were hardworking, but they did not brag. And she could not have done it without help, anyway.

Hermione was silent for over a minute, drinking in the details Susan had crafted. “I can’t believe you made this,” she said. “You need to—I mean, I would love if you would teach me that spell?”

And Susan couldn’t seem to stop grinning—didn’t want to stop grinning—as she squeezed her friend’s—her girlfriend’s?—hand.

“I can totally do that,” she said, heart swelling in her chest. Hermione had taught her and so many others so much; paying some of that back would feel good—even though Susan didn’t believe in debts of that kind. “Or you can come to the ministry with me. We need people like you.” She broke off at that, suddenly aware of how that could be interpreted. “Not—I didn’t mean to imply I was only trying to recruit you, it was just a thought, I—”

Being shut up by Hermione kissing her was surprisingly nice.

“I think I’ll let you teach me that spell first,” Hermione said, eyes thoughtful but still happy, from what Susan could tell. “And then I’ll see what I will do with my life.” She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, biting down on it, and Susan gave in to the impulse to reach out and smooth her thumb over those lips. “I might just take you up on the offer. Who knows what the two us could do if we team up?”

And Susan squeezed Hermione’s hand, trying to breathe through the anticipation. They had their whole lives left, and their time together was just starting out. She kissed Hermione again and decided that yes, they would be a force to be reckoned with. The wizarding world would not know what hit it.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Dreamwidth](http://kephiso.dreamwidth.org), where I talk about life and fandom and current prjects! Come find me, if you're so inclined!


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